Unpublished

In this episode, we talk about the practical tactics we actually use to sell our art and make money as artists.
This is not a mindset episode. We briefly acknowledge the shame, fear and awkwardness artists often carry around selling, but then we go all in on what we are doing right now: calls to action, repeating yourself, creating urgency, using scarcity ethically, building trust, newsletters, podcasts, websites, pre-orders, multiple income streams, hand-selling, word of mouth, and making it easier for people to buy the things you make.
We talk about why creative business is different from traditional business, why selling art is not like selling toasters, and why artists need to stop assuming people will magically know what to do next. If you want people to buy your work, you have to show them the door. Then you have to show them again. And again. And again.

Order Amie’s book We Need Your Art: https://www.amiemcnee.com/order-we-need-your-art-book-amie-mcnee
Read Amie’s Substack: https://substack.com/@amiemcnee

Is the problem systemic, or individual?
In this episode, we sit with the messy middle. Creative industries are full of scarcity, gatekeeping, bad incentives, exploitation, and cooked economics. But if we only talk about the broken system, artists are left feeling powerless. And if we only talk about personal responsibility, we ignore the real structures making everything harder.
So where does that leave us?
We talk about making art on hard mode, the patronising advice successful artists give, why hope matters, and how artists can critique the system while still building lives, careers, and work they believe in.
Order Amie’s book We Need Your Art: https://www.amiemcnee.com/order-we-need-your-art-book-amie-mcnee
Read Amie’s Substack: https://substack.com/@amiemcnee

Welcome to the Jamesy and Amsy Q&A, in which we discuss high school romance, creative chemistry, business roles, blurred boundaries, editorial bluntness, Steam Deck timing, Space Story, travel chaos, alternative careers, and whether an ibis is from Egypt. It is not. We checked.
We talk about what it’s really like to work with your spouse when one of you is a vibes guy and the other is building probability models in his head. We get into how we make creative decisions, why we text each other business thoughts even when we’re in the same building, why travel wrecks our routines, and why collaboration can be both the greatest joy and the hardest part of our relationship.

Order Amie’s book We Need Your Art: https://www.amiemcnee.com/order-we-need-your-art-book-amie-mcnee
Read Amie’s Substack: https://substack.com/@amiemcnee

This episode is about saying: no, I cannot come to coffee at 12pm just because my calendar looks technically empty. I am busy being available to my art.
We talk about creative devotion, guilt, boundaries, people-pleasing, small business weirdness, the fact that no one understands what we do all day, and why creative labour often looks like wandering around, reading, staring into space, going to the gym, walking, thinking, resting, tinkering and occasionally fucking up.
We also discuss why people respect a traditional job more than a creative life, why devotion before success looks delusional, why you should not have to be Charli XCX before people leave you alone, and why artists may need to become just a little bit more diva-ish about the conditions their work requires.
Your creative time is not free time. Your art is allowed to come first.
Order Amie’s book We Need Your Art: https://www.amiemcnee.com/order-we-need-your-art-book-amie-mcnee
Read Amie’s Substack: https://substack.com/@amiemcnee

Welcome to the Creative Help Hotline. How can we help you?
In this Q&A episode, we answer your questions about being exhausted by muggle life, creating through depression and anxiety, losing momentum, comparing yourself to other artists, wondering why your family has not become your personal fan club, whether you need a degree to make art, how to make money from creative work, and whether success means you will be crushed under the admin boulder forever.
We also discuss a new alternative to the bare minimum strategy we have been married to, celiac superiority, making your own MFA, true fans, intuitive marketing, and remembering your power when gatekeepers start acting like they own your life.
Order Amie’s book We Need Your Art: https://www.amiemcnee.com/order-we-need-your-art-book-amie-mcnee
Read Amie’s Substack: https://substack.com/@amiemcnee